Ali Smith - Girl Meets Boy

(They were laughing with outrageous happiness.)

(Neighbours must have seen. It was broad daylight.)

(I might have to move house.)

(Well, that’s all right. That’s all right. If I have to move house I have enough money to.)

Thirty-five thousand, very good money for my age, and for me being a girl, our dad says, which is a bit sexist of him, because gender is nothing to do with whether you are good at a job or not. It is nothing to do with me being a woman or not, the fact that I am the only woman on the Highland Pure Creative board of ten of us — it is because I am good at what I do.

Actually, I think Keith might ask me to go to the States, maybe for training with the in-house Creatives at Base Camp. I think Base Camp is in LA!

He seems very pleased with the Eau Caledonia tag.

He thinks it will corner not just the English-speaking market but a good chunk of the French market, which is crucial, the French market being so water-sales-established worldwide. Scottish, yet French. Well done, he said. They’d like you at Base Camp. You’d like it there.

Me! Los Angeles!

He seemed to be intimating it. He intimated it last Tuesday. He said I’d like it there, that’s what he said last week, that I’d like it, that they’d like me.

I told Anthea he had intimated it. She said: Keith intubated you? Like on ER?

I said: you’re being ridiculous, Anthea.

(There is also that gay woman doctor character on ER whose lovers always die in fires and so on.)

(Gay people are always dying all the time.)

Anthea is being ridiculous. I got her a good position and now she is at home doing nothing. She is really clever. She is wasting herself.

(I was sitting at home trying to think of a tag, I’d thought of MacAqua, but McDonald’s would sue, I’d thought of Scotteau, I’d been saying the word Eau out loud, and Anthea walked past the table as I said it, and she added Caledonia, we’re such a good team, we’d be a good team, we’d have been a good team, oh my God my sister is a)

Well, it is bloody lucky Keith intimates anything to me at all after they did me that favour at Pure about Anthea. She is so naïve, she has no idea what an unusually good salary level she was started at, it is really lucky nobody has associated me with how rude she was that day and that thing happening to the Pure sign

(which is clearly where they met. Maybe I saw the oh so romantic moment they met, last month, I was watching out the window, and the weirdo vandal came down the ladder and she and Anthea were talking, before Security took her away to wait for the police. I saw the name on the forms Security made her fill out. I recognised it. I knew it, the name, from when we were girls. It’s a small town. What else can you do, in a small town?)

(Unless they were in cahoots before that and had decided on it as a dual attack on Pure, which is possible, I mean, anything under the sun is possible now.)

(Everything has changed.)

(Nothing is the same.)

I’ve stopped. I’m not running. I’m just standing.

(I don’t want to run anywhere. I can’t think where to run to.)

(I better make it look like there is a reason for me to be just standing. I’ll go and stand by the pedestrian crossing.)

That word intimated is maybe something to do with the word intimate, since the word intimate is so much a part of, almost the whole of, the word intimated.

I am standing at the pedestrian crossing like a (normal) person waiting to cross the road. A bus goes past. It is full of (normal-looking) people.

(My sister is now one of the reasons the man who owns Stagecoach buses had that million-pound poster campaign all over Scotland where they had pictures of people saying things like ‘I’m not a bigot but I don’t want my children taught to be gay at school’, that kind of thing.)

(They were laughing. Like they were actually happy. Or like being gay is okay, or really funny, or really good fun, or something.)

I am running on the spot so as not to lose momentum.

(It is the putting of that leg in between the other legs that I can’t get out of my head. It is really kind of unforgettable.)

(It is so …

intimate.)

I stop running on the spot. I stand at the pedestrian crossing and look one way, then the other. Nothing is coming. The road is totally clear.

But I just stand.

(I don’t know what’s the matter with me. I can’t get myself to cross from one side to the other.)

(My sister would be banned in schools if she was a book.)

(No, because the parliament lifted that legislation, didn’t it?)

(Did it?)

(I can’t remember. I can’t remember either way. I didn’t ever think that particular law was anything I’d ever have to remember, or consider.)

(Have I ever noticed or considered anything about it? Should I have?)

(I did. I have. I remember reading in the paper about how people all across the world, and not just people but governments, in Poland and in Russia, but also in Spain, and Italy, are getting more and more tough on people being it. I mean, you’d expect that in Russia and in Poland. But in Italy? In Spain? Those are places that are supposed to be like here.)

(It said in the paper this morning that teenagers who are it are six times more likely to commit suicide than teenagers who aren’t it.)

(I don’t know what to do with myself.)

I stand at the crossing with no cars coming in either direction and I still don’t move to cross the road. I feel a little dizzy. I feel a little faint.

(Anyone looking at me will think I’m really weird.)

There’s only Dominic and Norman in the pub.

Where’ve you been, you useless slag? Norman says.

Don’t call me that, I say.

Can’t take a joke? he says. Loosen up. Ha ha!

He goes to the bar and brings me a glass of white.

Norm, I said a Diet Coke, I say.

But I’ve bought it now, Norman says.

So I see, I say.

Do you want me to take it back and change it? Norman says.

No, it’s okay, I’ll drink it since it’s here now, I say.

I texted you, Madge, Dominic says.

(My name’s Imogen.)

Did you? I say.

I texted you four times, Dominic says.

Ah. Because I left my mobile at home, I say.

I can’t believe you didn’t have your mobile with you, when I’d told you I was going to text you, Dominic says.

He looks really offended.

No Paul or anybody? I say. I thought everybody was coming.

Just us, Norman says. Your lucky night. Bri’s coming later. He’s bringing Chantelle.

I’d bring Chantelle any day, Dominic says.

I’d do a lot more to Chantelle than just bring her, Norman says. Paul’s gay, man. He won’t come out on a Monday night because of University Challenge being on.

Paul isn’t gay, I say in a small voice.

Paul’s hoping there’ll be questions on tonight about Uranus, Dominic says.

Paul isn’t gay, I say again louder.

You talking from experience then? Norman says.

Scintillating conversation, I say.

I make my face look bored. I hope it will work.

Dominic doesn’t say anything. He just stares at me. The way he’s looking at me makes me look away. I pretend I’m going to the ladies. I slip intoz the other bar and phone Paul.

Come to the pub, I say. I try to sound bright.

Who’s there? Paul asks.

Loads of us, I say.

Is it Dom and Norm? Paul says. I’m only asking because they left an abusive message on my answerphone.

Uh huh. And me, I say. I’m here.

No offence, Imogen. But I’m not coming out, Paul says. They’re wankers. They think they’re so funny, they act like some nasty double act off tv. I don’t know what you’re doing out with them.

Go on, Paul, please, I say. It’ll be good fun.